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How do I create a bootable USB Flash PcRepair Kit?

I wanted to create rescue/recovery/reanimator USB multi-bootable flash drive a year ago. I want to create the ultimate USB flash drive that would have the most if not all important stuff very self respected computer technician needs when restoring computer either from viruses, to previous point or previous working image completely however the most important is just to fix computer to restore it to previous optimal working condition without resolving to long processes of restoration.

I have heard of something as "multi-boot USB flash drive" which allows to choose what to boot without restarting computer or changing from one flash drive to another to load different utilities. The problem is that it requires customized boot-menu coded (Linux?) which goes something like /dva/hdd0 ... well you get the point.

Question is, how much time it would take average computer geek to do this and will 8 GB flash drive be enough? (which I doubt and think 16 GB should be good). I want to have antivirus with self-update in MSDOS capability, Windows operating system and all the other important stuff with utilities on flash drive. And I assume I will need low class flash drive to prioritize on small files since transfer rate does not play important role here, but access and write times and longevity of flash drive.

Also, how much would it cost to have image made with all the stuff I mentioned here?

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Boris_yo
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2 Answers2

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You might want to start by reading my post on the Super User Blog about this:

Making the Ultimate All-in-one Installation Flash Drive

The post explains all about how to make a multiboot Windows installer, then add pretty much any flavor of linux. The Pendrive Linux tool mentioned in the post makes it very easy to integrate things like UBCD, BartPE, Clonezilla, antivirus boot disks, etc.

nhinkle
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8GB might sound huge, but you need at least that for a bootable USB Win7 installation...

This link has information regarding a 'Wintoflash' tool

You talk about 'customised boot menu coded (Linux)' - the boot 'menu' (properly called a 'Boot Loader') is actually pre-OS. You could use the 'Linux' boot-loader (called Grub) to select bootable partitions (the same way you can use Window BOOTMGR), but i'm usure how this would work loading different bootable 'images' from the flash drive depending on what was selected. (ie images for AV, Recovery, Windows Repair/Install, testing (Hiren), Burn-in/Benchmarking)

Truth be told i've been meaning to do this for several months (cheap 16GB pendrives ftw!) but i've not had the time... (Work & MCSE timesinks/commitments come first!)

nhinkle covers ALL OF THIS AND MORE in his blog - which i'll certainly be using when i get around to creating my own... Kudo's nhinkle for a great blog post! :)

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HaydnWVN
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